The turn of the millennium saw the final release of the band known as
“At the Drive-In”, the name of the album was “Relationship of Command”. Merging
elements of various different genres, it was one of those bands that were
difficult to characterise. Not quite heavy enough to be considered metal but
loud and frenetic enough to make many fans in that genre, At the Drive-In
represented a different kind of attraction from many other bands at the time.
What was undeniable however was that there was a progressive element in their
music which made them exciting to listen to. Many of their compositions would sound chaotic
and disjointed, almost like a band indulging in a random jam rather than
playing a coherent structured song but they would always have a catchy tune
underneath all the sonic mish-mash that gave each song its identity. Choosing
to abide by Cobain’s iconic logic of burning out rather than fading away, the
band split up soon afterwards.
Two of the members however,
Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodríguez-López, chose to take the pioneering
sound that characterised At the Drive-In and take it to new heights and beyond
with a band that formed out of the ashes of At the Drive-In; enter The Mars
Volta. Featuring lengthy compositions often segmented into various parts with
an overall lyrical theme, The Mars Volta really explored to the full the
progressive potential first hinted at by At the Drive-In. The Mars Volta saw
Bixler-Zavala and Rodriguez-Lopez turn the weird notch up to 11 with
psychedelic riffs and lyrics that were so far “out there” that one could
sometimes have trouble knowing what language they were speaking.
I’m not here to chart the band’s
history though; I’m here to review their fifth studio effort “Octahedron”.
Released in 2009, this album had to follow four full albums of progressive and
truly unique material and would have much to live up to a fan base conditioned
to expect the unexpected. The result is a fairly subdued effort in which the
band have embraced more melodic material instead of their usual complex and
disjointed output. “Since we’ve been wrong” starts the album off on a mellow
note and sets the tone for the album that follows. “Teflon” and “Halo of
Nembutals” would offer fans more of what they were familiar with; it features
the usual messiness along with a slightly off-time drum beat.
The centrepiece of the album is
“With Twilight as my Guide”. This is a beautiful melodic piece with a great
tune. Many listeners may be frustrated by the fact that it never leaves 3rd gear,
nonetheless the appeal of this song is infectious.
The album finishes with “Luciforms”,
this is a slow burning example of progressive mastery. Starting as a slow and
almost haunting rhythm it then kicks into the kind of discordant atonal guitar
work which really should sound terrible but yet strangely doesn’t. Indeed, the
band very much base their sounds on a collection of dissonant atonal noise and
allows them to coalesce together to form a tune, indeed it’s difficult to imagine
how these songs were written.
Despite some worthy offerings,
this album has to be their weakest yet. It’s not a bad album, none of the eight
songs on offer here are in any way bad, it’s just that they have done so much
better. Most of The Mars Volta’s previous work was more dynamic, more varied, a
lot more progressive and exploratory. They offered much more for progressive
aficionados to sink their teeth into. It’s difficult to know whether I would
recommend this album. If you are an existing fan then you will find a lot of
the elements of the band you know and love to be found here. If you have never
heard them before, this might be a good place to start seeing as its probably
their lightest and most easily accessible offering yet, just don’t listen to
this with the assumption that you are hearing the absolute best they have to
offer because it only gets better from here.
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